Give 'em Hell, Kid
by i am jack's wasted life
Summary: AU Twilight story line. Bella's 19 and forced to move from Phoenix to Alaska after things with Renee and Phil get out of hand. She's angry, alone, and unwilling to change. Maybe someone can warm her up to the frigid temps? Full summary i/s.
1. Out of Luck, Hope, and Cigarettes

**Disclaimer: I do not own **_**Twilight.**_

**A/N: **So here's something new… I really like this idea, only because I find it more fun to relate to. Hope you guys feel the same! Enjoy… -A.

**Summary:** Bella's leaving Phoenix University in the middle of her freshman year. She's starting her second semester in Alaska and staying with Charlie after things with Phil and Renee get a little out of hand. She's nineteen, angry, and unwilling to change. She loved Arizona, and she was only willing to give it up for New York. But those plans have abruptly changed. She's pessimistic and alone, but with the help of a certain someone, maybe she can learn to enjoy the frigid temperatures… in more ways than one.

* * *

**Give 'em Hell, Kid**

_jack's wasted life_

**Chapter One**

_Out of Luck and Out of Hope and Out of Cigarettes_

"_She's pretty as a car crash,_

_sexy as a stinger of a hornet in your arm;_

_just another modern swinger screamin',_

'_catch me if you can!'_

_with a cigarette in hand…"_

-The Pink Spiders

* * *

"Bells, what the hell? Where are you?" his voice sounded angry as it rang through the other end of my cell phone.

"Tom, calm down. I had to leave. Charlie made me." I answered back. This was the exact conversation I was trying to avoid; yet I knew I'd have to have it with someone eventually. Unfortunately, I couldn't mask the annoyance in my voice.

"What do you mean, 'Charlie made me?' You're nineteen, Bella! No one can make you do anything! This is bullshit!" He screamed back at me.

"Well apparently the government doesn't give a crap about how old you are."

"What? You mean he pulled the 'Feds' card on you? How did that play out?"

"It was disgustingly easy, actually. He said that if I didn't leave the house, he would send in officers on a count of domestic violence and abuse. I couldn't subject Renee to something that extreme while she goes through her divorce. Consider this my move to save face. Sorry, Tom." I explained. I rolled down the window to my truck as I lifted my good knee to steady the steering wheel. I felt the truck slow slightly as my right foot pulled off the gas pedal. I pulled an almost-empty cigarette box out from my open bag in the passenger's seat and sifted for the last stick of tobacco. At the same time, I dug into my jean pocket for my lighter.

"Well, are you coming back then?" Tom asked after a small pause.

"I don't know, Tom." I answered as I shoved the cigarette in my mouth and lit the end.

"So you're just dropping out of college mid-year with no place to go? Wow, does your dad know he just fucked up your education and topped it off by officially declaring you as 'homeless?' You were better off here!"

I shoved my lighter back into my pocket and grabbed a hold of the steering wheel just as my truck started to veer to the right slightly. "No, it's not like that. I guess I'm going to the University of Alaska Southeast or some shit like that and staying with him. He set up an account for me and is willing to pay tuition and all that."

"So he's bribing you, too? Bells, why didn't you just tell him you'd rather move in with me? Or at least with some other friends? Or even look to stay on campus? There are so many other options than this!" He started screaming again.

"I tried, Tommy! He didn't want to hear any of it! I'm sorry this bothers you so much, but I can't help the situation any more, it's out of my hands obviously!" I screamed back. There was silence for a minute and I used the opportunity to take one long drag from my cigarette.

"This sucks." He said.

"I know. Look, I'm driving. I have to go. I'm nearing the border now."

"I can't believe you didn't tell any one you were leaving. A simple phone call would have been nice. Better yet, we would have at least liked to help you pack and say goodbye. It's a little shitty if you ask me." He sulked quietly.

"I would have preferred that, honestly. But I had a bit of a time limit." I answered. When there was no sign of a response from the other end, I decided to continue. "Believe me, Tommy, I begged and begged to stay longer and have the chance to say goodbye, but like I said, it was out of my hands." I took another drag of my cigarette. "Look, Tom, really, I have to go. You know my driving skills. I shouldn't be on the phone. Plus I need to find some exit and I'm pretty sure I passed it. I have my laptop with me, I'll connect up with you when I get there, okay?"

"Whatever. I hate your dad."

"You and me both. Bye, Tom."

"Later." I heard him snap his phone shut.

I in turn did the same and threw it over to the passenger's seat where it joined my empty cigarette box and book bag. I heard it clang against the one of the metal crutches. I had been driving for nearly three days and was almost out of Canada. I just needed to find the exit that took me across the Alaskan state line.

Charlie had moved me out of my home with Renee and Phil after Renee called to tell him about the little fight her and Phil had a few nights back. Apparently Charlie found it to be a very unhealthy environment for me to reside in since that last dispute between my mother and Phil somehow involved alcohol, the breaking of windows, wrecking of furniture, and waving of an un-loaded gun around with me present. We never mentioned _how it started._ And as far as Charlie knows, I fell down my stairs. Again. Now I'm on my way to some small and destitute city in Alaska to live with my anti-social, workaholic father and a few neighboring Eskimos. Awesome. If I had it my way, I'd be living in an apartment with a few friends just outside the Phoenix campus, but no. That's too dangerous. Charlie's reasoning's were too above and beyond for me to grasp. Instead I was ordered, threatened, and bribed to pack up and leave. For good, I assumed from his tone of voice.

However I had different plans. I really only saw myself staying there for a year, at most, and then trucking to New York. There's no way Charlie could keep me in Alaska. It's fucking Alaska.

I turned up the volume on my radio and resumed the song that was paused on my iPod. This one happened to be one of my favorites, and I had been replaying it for the last half hour or so. I settled back comfortably in my seat with my left hand near the window to discard ashes. As the familiar tune started, I began singing aloud with the band.

"Passed out on the overpass; Sunday best and broken glass. Broken down from the bikes and bars, suspended like spirits over speeding cars. You and me were kings over the parkway tonight, and tonight will go on forever while we walk around this town like we own the streets and stay awake through summer like we own the heat, singin', 'everybody wake up, wake up, it's time to get down!'"

I took another drag of the cigarette and began to bounce around in my seat to the music as I did so, spilling some ash on my jeans. I didn't care, though. I picked up with the band once more after flicking the remaining ashes from the lit cherry out the window.

"—Gonna stay eighteen forever so we can stay like this forever, and we'll never miss a party 'cause we keep them going constantly; and we'll never have to listen to anyone about anything 'cause it's all been done and it's all been said. We're the coolest kids and take what we can get—the hell out of this town. Find some conversation. The 'low fuel' light's been on for days; it doesn't mean anything. I got another five hundred, 'nother five hundred miles before we shut this engine down."

I found myself always screaming this verse. I knew the story behind the lyrics—the true story that is—not about wanting to party on forever and never grow up. It had something to do with the lead singer—Jesse Lacey's—brother dying at a young age, and him thinking that it wasn't his brother's time—or something along those lines. It was about wanting to relive the best summer of their lives, together. It was about how nothing would ever be the same; maybe that's why I liked this song so much, especially now. Nothing was going to be the same in Alaska. It wasn't fair. I turned the volume up even more within the cab and felt the vibrations from the strumming of the guitar pulse through the seat beneath me. There was one part of the song—the background, actually—that really attracted me, and it was coming up.

"You're just jealous 'cause we're young and in love! You're stomach's filled up, but you're starved for conversation! You're spending all your night's growing old in your bed! And you're tearing up your photos 'cause you want to forget it's over!"

This verse repeated a few times before ending with a repeat of just a few words. And they held implications of meaning to me.

"You're just jealous 'cause we're young and in love! You're just jealous 'cause we're young and in love! YOU'RE JUST JEALOUS 'CAUSE WE'RE YOUNG AND IN LOVE!"

I began to scream with the band now. There was so much hidden meaning behind the words I was shouting.

"YOU'RE JUST JEALOUS 'CAUSE WE'RE YOUNG AND IN LOVE! YOU'RE JUST JEALOUS—"

The song abruptly stopped, and though I knew that this was the way the song ended normally, the sudden silence still caught me off guard. What shocked me more though, was the unexpected water-works threatening to spill from my eyes. I could feel the tears brimming around my lids and suddenly felt silly and over-emotional. It felt like it was my life that had just stopped so abruptly. It felt like I wasn't as prepared as I could have been. It felt like I was robbed.

I willed the tears back and instead let my iPod carry on with the next tune and focused on the highway. I took one more long drag from my cigarette and tossed its remains out the window, not realizing that I had just discarded my last one.

Great.

I had a long drive ahead of me still.

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**A/N:** I know Bella seems OOC here, she's supposed to. I need her to be more of an angsty, whiney teenager to make this story play out right. Remember, you die-hard-Bella fans, this is only a fic. I'm purposely writing the story like this with my goal being to almost re-write Twilight outside of Forks, Washington and with a completely different background/previous-environment for Bella. Kind of like another universe, if you will. And don't worry. Edward's still a vamp. So are the rest of the Cullens. I'm not willing to go that off-base. The chapter is short, only because I want to see what kind of feed-back you all have for it. I'm still iffy about the whole thing. I don't know if it's a waste of my time or not; if it should just be an idea left in my head. If I decide later on that I like the idea enough, I may continue it without regarding its popularity. First, though, I need to develop a complete story line. If you have any ideas, they'd be greatly appreciated, so help yourself to clicking that green little button below this author's note. –A.

P.S. If I do decide to continue this, the chapters will be notoriously long, as they are in my other story. And if you don't like Ms. Out-of-character-Bella, then help yourself to reading my other project entitled "Déjà Entendu." She's pretty true-blue there.


	2. Good Bye

**Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight.**

**A/N: **…and here we go…. –A.

* * *

**Give 'em Hell, Kid**

jack's wasted life

**Chapter Two**

_Good-Bye_

"_Feel myself, heavy on the ground_

_and I'm scared that I'm not coming down;_

_no, no._

_And I won't run for my life._

_She's got her jaws now locked down in a smile,_

_but nothing is all right…_

_alright."_

-Third Eye Blind

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"_The sky was gold; it was rose; I was taking sips of it through my nose. And I wish I could get back there, someplace, back there; smiling in the pictures you would take…"_

Do you ever have those dreams, where, in the background, a song is playing, as if to add theme to the fictional situation that plays through your conscience, behind your eyelids while you take a few hours out of the night to rest? And it always seems to be a song that you haven't heard within the last decade, a song that was never mentioned, or played recently that would somehow make sense out of its sudden trigger. Yet, nevertheless, it still plays, on repeat, too, all throughout your dream, adding meaning and movie-like quality. And it always seems to be just the right song, one that, if you were awake, you would have never considered, and anything you would have considered wouldn't stand a chance to being as perfect. Even still, sometimes the song is so perfect it'll go as far as to honor you with a sense of comfort.

Or sometimes it has the opposite effect.

The latter was how I felt when I woke up this morning. Comfort was a lost sense of feeling when my alarm went off. In fact, comfort was lost even before then. Comfort was lost through out the entire dream.

No, it wasn't comfort that I felt. Far from it, actually. It was a sense of sadness. A sense of longing.

You know how, sometimes, more often than not, you can never remember your dreams when you wake up? Yeah, I wasn't blessed with that gift, either. Not only was my dream on repeat all night, it seemed as if the imaginary repeat button were broken, and my sad movie was constantly rewinding and replaying all morning as well.

This was one of those dreams I was never going to forget. But what I found rather sick and masochistic, and even sadder yet, was that I didn't want to forget it.

"It hurts to hold on, but it's missed when it's gone." Jesse Lacey said that. And, though his situation was rather different from this, his theory still holds true.

And so, I held onto my dream, and my subconscious seemed to know that I should hold onto it, too, as it replayed the events voluntarily and willingly despite my protests, as if it were set on autopilot and in full control.

_The sky _was_ a mixture of gold and rose as the sun set, leaving shards of its reflection on the mountains across from it over to the east. We were all sitting on the park benches, laughing and joking without a care in the world. Miranda was on her skateboard with Tom sitting off to the side, yet somehow next to her. They were talking about tricks and what not. I was never into skating, so I never really paid attention._

_Sean was running around with a set of keys in his hands. Mine, I was pretty sure. And I was chasing him. I watched myself chase him as he ran around the table, in between Miranda and Tom, over a small wooden sign, and back to the table, making a full circle. He laughed, I laughed, even Tom and Miranda laughed at his antics. We were all laughing, and I could hear Miranda shout, "Sean's not allowed to touch other people's things! How many times do we have to say that?!" Yet she laughed as she scolded him publically._

_He turned toward me, the me that was chasing him, and made a funny face. One where his eyes would cross and his tongue would jut out of his mouth and lawl to the side._

I watched the entire scene play out and unfold as if it were a movie. I could see myself chase Sean around, begging and screaming and laughing for my keys back. Yet I could feel the park bench beneath me where I sat. It was odd. I felt like a stranger, eaves-dropping on someone else's private moments, yet I felt as though I were also clued into some inside joke.

The sun never really seemed to set, the sky stayed tinted, as time seemed to stop. The laughter rang melodically, as if in harmony to the song that played in time with everyone's actions.

And then the worst part came.

The part that made the dream so agonizing.

The part that lingered in your head, a few seconds too long, just so the pain could sink in further, and really do the damage that it had set out to do.

I swear, had I known my words would come back to haunt me, as they so intently plan on doing from this morning on, I would have never said them.

_Sean stopped ahead of me, all of us watching, with my keys in hand. The laughter didn't falter, but it did fade to only background noise. A devilish smile played out on his lips, one that screamed mischief and made me back up a few steps to brace myself. I smiled a smile of mischief back, as if to let him know that I could take whatever he was ready to bring. _

_Suddenly, Sean charged the whole twenty-yard distance between us, making a direct path for me. I stood my ground, ready to faint left or right to slip by him. And I did, as soon as he was within reach. I fainted to my right, but spun myself around fast enough to grab the back of his shirt and stop him mid-sprint. When I assumed he was stable enough, I leaped onto his back, and his arms automatically went to my legs to support my weight. I wrapped my arms around his neck and laughed._

"_Gotcha!" I giggled into his neck._

_He laughed back. "That you did!"_

"_Keys please?" I asked him politely, keeping up the mocking tone of our humor._

"_Not until you promise that you won't leave! Rules still stand, misses." He laughed at me as he began to jog and leap around with me on his back._

_I shrieked lightly as he jumped on the bench and back down, acting as though I were in fear of him dropping me. But I knew he wouldn't. It was all apart of the game. I trusted him; he'd never dropped me before, he wouldn't drop me now._

"_But I want something _else!" _I laughed with him as he began to skip around Tom and Miranda. "I need to get _out_ of this place! Badly!" _

"_Aw, give her her keys, Sean!" Miranda came to my defense. "She's been talking about leaving for the past four years. Let her go! She'll come crawling back when she realizes how much she misses this place!"_

"'_Ain't no place like home!'" Tom quoted as he laughed along with Miranda._

_I joined in with them, and Sean lowered me to the ground. He turned to face me with a face of defeat. He slipped his right hand into his pocket, dug around for a second, and pulled it back out; fingers clasped around my keys._

_I held my hand out with smile of triumph split widely across my face._

_He was hesitant for a moment._

"_New York?" He asked, trying to mask his seriousness with a sense of jest. _

"_You can always come with me…" I replied back in a singsong manner._

_He looked over his shoulder, out to the distance, toward the east at the mountains._

"_I like Arizona very much, thank you." He answered back._

_I shrugged. "Suit yourself, then. Keys." I reminded him, as I waved my fingers to show my impatience. _

"_Promise to visit at least?" He said as he raised the keys up above my hand, willing to drop them at the right answer._

"_Of course! What a stupid question, Seanie!" I snatched my keys from his hands and followed up by gripping him around the waist with a tight hug. I buried my face in his chest and continued. "I may be leaving soon, but it's still not for a while. And you know I would never leave you guys. I would be back constantly to visit! You guys are all family, and I need my family!"_

"_The girl can give a speech!" Sean yelled after a moment, and he hugged me back just as tight and planted a small kiss on the top of my head._

"_It's not 'good-bye!'" Miranda yelled over to us. "It's 'see you later!'"_

_And we all laughed._

God. What I would give for all of that to be true. It wasn't just a dream, but a memory locked tightly up in my mind for safekeeping. But who am I kidding? I'm not going home. As far as Charlie's concerned, this _is_ home. Maybe when I graduate college I can go back, but by then, would it really be worth it? I wanted New York. I was _destined_ for New York. NYU accepted my transfer application, and I was all ready to leave at the end of my semester in Phoenix. Why did Charlie have to mess all that up?

No.

Why did _Phil_ have to mess all that up?

I reached around my crutches, which were strewn across the cab seat of my truck, and into my book bag. I grabbed a fresh pack of cigarettes out of the side pocket, and began to pack them against the dashboard. Three hits. That's all it took for a neatly packed stick. I tore off the wrappers and instinctively grabbed the first middle three sticks of tobacco, preparing to flip them over. I stopped half way.

Good Grades.

Good Fuck.

Good Luck.

Each stick was supposed to stand for one. Miranda taught me that.

I gently pushed them back in and instead only grabbed the single middle stick of tobacco and flipped in upside down. I pushed it back in its place, where it stood out amongst the rest.

Good Luck.

Lord knows I need it right about now.

I grabbed the stick next to my lucky and used my other hand to dig into my pants pocket for a lighter. I lit the end of the cigarette, and stuffed the box and lighter into the side pocket of book bag. I checked the time as I cracked the window to my truck.

The clock read 9:19am.

Just enough time for one cigarette before class started.

I'd been sitting in the college parking lot for some time now, watching cars pull in and back out. I had a pretty decent parking place. I was close enough where it wouldn't bother me to hobble on my crutches for too long. I grabbed a CD that I had stolen from Charlie this morning (who knew he listened to 90's rock?), and slipped in into the stereo. I read the back of the case as I switched it to song number three.

Suddenly drums and a guitar ripped through the speakers.

"_Do do do, do do do-do, do do do, do do do-do…"_

I really am masochistic, aren't I? I curled my good leg up to my chest onto the seat. I knew that if my left leg weren't broken, I'd currently be in the fetal position, probably rocking back and fourth as I smoked my cigarette.

I could feel my chest ache in pain, and not from a few bruised or broken ribs. It wasn't a sharp pain, but a dull one. A pain that could easily be mistaken for nausea, a pain that literally made you sick to your stomach. I knew why that pain was there, too. It was pain of loneliness. It was a pain brought on from homesickness. And it was so much stronger when my dreams were made reality with the song playing over the radio. Yet, I had no will to turn it off. Instead, I let the song play, listening to it's words with dire concentration, as if I were to be tested on it in just a few hours, and my whole existence depended on a passing grade.

The obvious words to the song called my attention.

"_I'm not listening when you say, 'good-bye.'"_

It reminded me of Miranda's words in the dream. "It's not 'good-bye,' it's 'see you later.'"

Then it hit me, that wasn't a dream I'd had last night. It had the qualifications of a nightmare. Dreams have happy endings. Nightmares obviously don't. What I had dreamt last night was nothing more than impossibility. It really was good-bye. I had just chosen not to listen until now.

I took one more drag of my cigarette, and noticed the time.

There was just enough left to allow me to limp to class before I would be deemed late. I took one last drag of the tobacco, and flipped the cigarette through the cracked window. I leaned over, gathered up my bag and crutches, and prepared to hobble away. But I stopped my motions in time to listen to the last of the lyrics to the song:

"_I want something else to get me through this… life. Baby, I want something else… Not listening when you say 'Good-bye…' Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye!"_

As the track ended, and I pulled my keys from the ignition, I thought to myself about what the song was saying. For someone who was concentrating so hard on the lyrics, I was missing the obvious meaning. Yes, the song was about drugs. But what do drugs do? Well, to the addicted, they help one get along with life in a more sedated and calm fashion.

My life was pretty bad right now… not that I want drugs; nicotine is bad enough. But couldn't I find something else that could work as a drug? Something else that could "get me through this life?"

Well, as old people tend to say, "there's no use in crying over spilt milk." Now's the time to prioritize and move on. I wouldn't be seeing my friends anytime soon… Alaska is farther away than one would think. But I could make the most of this desolate place. And the college is rather small… I'll stand out like a sore thumb with these damn crutches. So I'm bound to talk to _someone._

Number one on my priority list: find something I enjoy here in _fucking Alaska._

Okay, I realize now I have a bit of prejudice to the damn place. My bitterness will subside eventually though, right? Finding something nice here may take a while, but I'm sure it'll happen. Right? _Right?!_

I hobbled out of my truck and pulled the hood to my jacket up, and slipped on a pair of gloves that were stashed in my pocket. It was freezing outside, and after living in hot and dry Arizona for most of my life, cold and wet weren't exactly two things I was quite fond of. I hobbled towards the front entrance to the college, trying to remember exactly where Biological Anthropology was. I'm pretty sure it was building A, but I couldn't be too positive.

As I made my way to the entrance, a boy with sandy blonde hair held the door open for me.

"Thanks." I muttered as I passed him.

"No problem!" He answered too cheerfully. "Where you headed, I'll help you."

_Well that was fast. Who knew Eskimos were so friendly?_

"Um, Biological Anthropology." I answered him.

He smiled a huge smile, his blue eyes lighting up in doing so. "That's where I'm headed! Here," He said, as he made a move to grab my bag from my shoulder. "Let me carry that for you."

"Thanks." I mumbled again. I had never met anyone so helpful before. In Phoenix, most people ignored me. I guess the crutches scream "weak and helpless."

"Name's Mike." He said as he led me through the hall. "I take it you just transferred?"

"Yeah. I'm Bella." I answered him as I hopped behind the boy.

"Where'd you transfer from?"

"Um, Phoenix, Arizona."

"Ouch. There's a dramatic change. Well, I hope you like Alaska!" He smiled at me brightly one more time as he held the door to the class open, gesturing for me to continue through.

"Thanks." I hobbled in and noticed the entire lab was filled with students already. There was one chair open in the back, next to another male who was staring intently out the side window, watching snow fall. Mike scooted ahead of me and draped my bag across the back of the open seat.

"New lab partner, Cullen!" Mike said to the boy. But he didn't seem to hear him.

* * *

**A/N: **Dun dun dun. Yeah, I'm trying sorta to follow the Twilight plot line. We'll see how that goes. For now, it's working. Hope you guys don't mind the OOC of everything. One user left a review saying that Bella seemed more real. That's exactly what I was going for. Glad someone sees that:) Anyway… hit that green button, feel free to send your ideas for the plot. As a side note, anyone who's waiting on Déjà Entendu to continue, I apologize. I've been busy. Half of the next chapter is written, I just need to finish it. I'm slowly getting around to it. Either way, enjoy what's here! –A.

P.S. Sorry for any grammatical or spelling mistakes. It's late, I'm tired, and I can only catch so much. And yes, that was my disclaimer to any failures:)


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